Eight subtle behaviour changes that boost your social self-esteem
Years of social anxiety forced me to learn everything about confidence around other people.
I found an amazingly fine line between getting caught up in anxiety and enjoying social interactions.
Here’s what I learned that helped me the most:
1. Stop trying to be confident.
When sensing their lack of confidence, most people try to compensate by trying to be more confident.
This is a mistake and one I fell for many times. If we’re trying to be anything, we are placing pressure on ourselves. This amps up our self-consciousness and puts more on our minds to confuse and stall us.
Trying to be more confident sends a message to ourselves: ‘I’m not content with who I am — I have a problem.’
Let go of trying to be anything, and you will find relief.
2. Listen with presence.
At the heart of social anxiety lies a constant need to pay attention to ourselves.
We judge ourselves when we’re anxious like this, and it makes us uptight. Instead, we need to put the attention elsewhere — like on other people. This takes the pressure off you and is relaxing.